Our Lemondade Stand

                                                           My Lemonade Stand

                                                                                                                By Tenzin Womatsang

Today is the day, we started our lemonade stand. While my dad had an online meeting something related to his work,  I went about preparing to make the cookies that to go with the Lemonade.

You may wondering how I made my cookies, did my dad or mom help? Absolutely not, it is all by myself. Well, here is the step by step instructions on making the cookies using my own creativity and imagination.

First, I got my cake mixers out and started by pouring the vanilla cake mix into a bowl. Next I did the same thing with my chocolate cake mix. I went into the kitchen and opened my fridge and grabbed my half and half milk carton.

 Next, I took 4 eggs out of our fridge. I got two bowls from my top cupboards, and started cracking two eggs in 1 bowl. I made sure not to crack eggshells in the bowl or else it would taste yucky like eating a sticky sock dipped in dirty mud.

After I finished cracking up all my eggs, I ran as fast as a cheetah to go snatch a spoon from the kitchen. With my spoon, I mixed up in my first bowl my eggs with a gentle circular movement but with my second bowl I gave it a real hard beating like in a boxing competition.

Once my two bowls were all mixed up with no yolk left, I poured the first bowl in my vanilla cake batter, then with my second bowl I poured my eggs in to my chocolate cake batter. Can you guess what’s next? If you guessed right, I took my light green whisk out and red spatula!!!

With my whisk I started mixing in circular pattern in my vanilla and chocolate cake mix, once it was fully dissolved I took out my spatula and scooped my cake mix and threw it back down. I did it few more times.

Because I wanted to make sure, there was no left over batter down below. I added ¼ cup of milk into both cake mix. I mixed it thoroughly till it was soft and smooth. With that finally I have put it in the oven for 15 minutes, and then it was all ready,

I took one zip lock bag and filled it up with one with vanilla barter, then I did the same thing with my second zip lock bag with chocolate batter. I took out a long rectangle piece of parchment paper and put it on my baking sheet.

 I cut the end piece of the zip lock bags so I could squeeze out batter like icing. I started by squeezing out vanilla icing on to the parchment paper in a circular form, then I did this again but in different shapes like hearts or smile faces. Then I repeated the same step with my chocolate batter. After that was done, I placed the parchment paper onto the oven and closed the door and set the time to 15 mins on 350 f.

Once the timer turned off, I checked to see if the cookies were cooled off. Once I checked to see if it was cool.

 I got containers in which I started placing the cookies inside.

Meanwhile, I got some plastic cups, straws, and my poster for sales advertising, napkins, table cloth, and a table ready for the Lemonade stand.

Thankfully, my father finished his meeting and came downstairs to help me to carry the things to the venue.  One thing I like about him, is that he really allow us to do things by ourselves. He also like us to take initiative and be creative in what we do.  He thinks that letting us to do things, will make us more independent and that we learn to become more self-responsible.    But I want to be in charge, and he doesn’t interfere in that. However, my mom has her own way of handling us, she has the most healing hand. She is extremely well organized and a perfectionist. She was hesitating, if the putting up the lemonade stand was the right thing in this time of Covid-19 Delta variant surging, however she relented at the last.

But I am always thankful to my dad for doing the heavy lifting in all the things we do. He carried the table for the lemonade stand to help us set up. He poured all ice in the big jug, and then the lemonade.  

             I directed to put the table right in front of the pool.

Business Was Booming:

It was a hot day, the temperature was well over 90 F, and there are a quite number of people including kids in the swimming pool. Our main target customers for the lemonade stand is for those people coming and leaving the swimming pool.  

Once we set up the table, and laid out the cookies, I have my younger sister Karma , who is extremely energetic and the perfect sale person, started to draw customers to our table, by calling out and explaining to people, there is a lemonade stand.

She is joined by two young little brothers, they are our friends and neighbors. They are the cutest and unabashed and unreserved in directing customers to the stand. And very good sale person too.

So I was standing at the table and collecting money and handing out cookies and lemonade they make the sales pitch to whoever passes by.

  Our first customer was a very kind person in a car. Seeing us running a brisk business and so with so much excitement, he gave us 20$, and said it is a donation for our stand, even though we didn’t ask for it.  We want to shout out to him, and say thank you for that encouragement.

Our salesperson walked around our neighborhood and doing door dash and knocking the doors. They take order and then deliver the items.  

Each time, we managed to make a sale, we are so excited and felt elated. People are coming to our table nonstop and our business was booming.   My cash box is overflowing with money!!!

 Meanwhile, my dad was having his own time. He was swimming in the pool without paying any attention to us. But the dad of our little sales person was kind enough to sit by the side and looking after us. So having an adult around us was reassuring.

Thus we had a successful lemonade stand sale, and we sold our freshly made lemonade like a hotcake and our cookies was in high demand too.

After several hours of running the business, we finally wrapped up and closed our business. My dad then stopped by after swimming to his heart’s content. and along with the dad of our little children, helped to clean up, and carrying few things back to the house.

I was overwhelmed by everyone’s support and by the success of the stand, so I wanted share the profit, the kind Dad asked me to keep the lion’s share, so anyway I happily  gave away 20$ to my two little employees and I earned 50$ in total and the kid and the dad all was happy.  

This is the story of my lemonade stand.

‘

Slime for Sale

                                                             Slime for Sale 

                                                                                                       By Tenzin Womatsang 

Today, me and my father, as well as my  sister went to Walmart, to get some supplies for my lemonade stand and slime business. 

When we first went inside Walmart, I dashed to end of the aisles where the beverages are located. My dad is trailing us pushing a big shopping cart in front of him. 

While I went forward passing the rows of shelves till to the end, my chubby little sister dashed to another direction of store. She is literally galloping in excitement of what she want to get. It was little concerning that she couldn’t control herself and that she might run into someone by knocking them off by her sheer weight or get herself knocked off. 

My sister was after the baking aisle, where she grabbed a vanilla and chocolate cake mix. I already knew what she had in mind then. I was at the beverage section, where I grabbed a bottle of lemonade and I pack of lemonade mixer. Because for the lemonade stand, we want to have both fresh and the powder, depending on the demand.

 My dad, he always freak out with soda as too sugary and junk food as unhealthy to consume, but he surprised us this time, by pulling out a pack of coke and quietly put it in the cart, wishing that we wouldn’t see it. If any of us kids, go for it, I am sure he will not allow us so today was my lucky day!

 I was filling the empty carter that my dad was pulling with other eatables and drinks. When we reached the aisle where they have slime for sale. We bought the ingredients for making the slime, such as 1 blue glitter glue, 1 clear glue and 1 Elmers’s magical liquid. We father also reminded that mommy wanted to buy some eggs and milk too. 

We circled around to the fresh produce, where we bought fruits. My father insists Fuji apple is sweet and we looked for it. In each bag, there are around 10 apples, which looks crispy and fresh. Also a pack of cherries that my dad thought will be good to have. We also bought four piece of lemonades. We almost mistake it with a lime. 

Having packed the cart with all the things we needed, next we headed to check out. The cash register was self-serving. My dad scanned some of the items twice, and we had to call a customer reps to cancel the duplicity. 

Over all, we had itemized bill for $55.00 We walked out of the store, feeling relieved and ready for our business venture sell slime and lemonade.

 The author of this article, Miss Tenzin Womatsang  wins Presidential Award for Academic Excellency from her Elementary school

Is Learning French Easy-It Depends.

                                   Is Learning French a Piece of Cake? 

                                                                                                      By  Tenzin Womatsang

 

French is fun, because it is a unique language on its own. It is not plain but sophisticated . If all the world languages were the same, it would be  boring, nothing special. But French is one of the oldest languages in the world, and I always wanted to learn how to speak French. 

Finally, when I turned 11 years old, I had the opportunity to learn French.

For the past months, during my summer vacation, we learned numbers in French from 0-100 and the French alphabet. Then we also studied vowels, past tense, animal names, people and more.

These days, we are watching and listening to the French songs and short videos in which people are having conversations in French. I have some friends in French class, namely Chonzeom and Dazae.

As of now, I have turned 12 years old, and I am still taking French. My younger sister started learning French too.

France is known to be a romantic and peaceful place. The world renowned Eiffel Tower is a major landmark in the city of Paris, where the people mostly speak French.

Now let me tell you, what the hardest hard part of studying French is. Getting the accent right is very hard. But once you get over the French pronunciation correctly, then everything else will be a piece of cake.

In the beginning, I struggled with French accent or pronunciation. It was so difficult to say it in the French way that I almost felt like giving up. But I hung in there and kept on with some grit. Now thanks to my patience and perseverance, my French accent is much better.

Our French teacher is Ms Kelly. She is a volunteer through the OPIL, a Church based organization that provides free tuition to encourage the kids of the local community to get extra help in their studies. The OPIL creates a good environment for learning and their methods of teaching and tutoring work fantastically well. 

Finally, I do insist that if you have children and you need some help from tutors. Then go to OPIL.com. They do more than teaching languages, they teach math, reading and other fun activities and hobbies that no one will regret.

 

                                                                                The End

I Love Tibet Shirt

Coinciding spring break, the Capital Area Tibetan Sunday School organized a White House tour for the Sunday Bodyi Lapta students. The registration for the tour was required a month in advance and every details of the person going for the tour had to be furnished as demanded.

  This thoughtful tour to the most powerful symbol of American democracy and power house of the administration was the brainchild of Bodyi Lapta headmaster, a self-less man who genuinely cared for the Tibetan children’s Tibetan language education for a long period of time. And he continues to dedicate himself for this cause of making the Tibetan born in the US molded into a person of character and discipline laced with their own Tibetan identity. 

 Usually the Tibetans protestors are seen on March 10th, rallying for support outside the White House. This time Tibetan American youth and their parents took the message inside the White House. A benign and yet conspicuous and powerful message, was their I LOVE TIBET T-shirts. I LOVE TIBET screaming loudly from their white T-shirts was the most noticeably things, and most the effective message that they all carried during the entire tour.

 School headmaster Tenzin Lhundup la procured the shirts for the last minute for the students thanks to his perseverance and hard-work. As the kids put on the T-Shirts, our team of 41 people for the first day White House Tour had unified identical look and cohesiveness as we walk to the White House. Pedestrians notice the message on the TV shirt, loud and clear react their approval and flash up thumb up signs, others vocally express their admiration for the message that the kids are projecting innocently on their chest.

 Waiting for a bee lines for the 10:00am White house tour, our group of elder and younger children with their symbolic white TV shirts with the I LOVE Tibet written in green was inescapable to the eyes of other visitors, who came every corner of the United States.

They are school students group, adults and so on. After passing through layers of security checks, finally we are ushered into a beautiful marble white building. The presidential history lays out in bare, with the sights of priceless China porcelain that the first ladies and presidents received from foreign dignitaries.

Furnishings and interiors are renovated dates back to many years .The existing interior and furnishings date back to as early as 1902 during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, when it underwent renovation.

 Like a museum, there are beautiful portraits of former president Ronald Reagan and pictures of past presidents and first family adorned the hallways. There are antiques and handmade carpets beautifully decorates the numerous rooms. In this majestic building, which is called White House, after workers hundreds of years ago white washed the walls from decay. There are rows after rows of rooms, for dinning, for guest reception, for library and so on. For every rooms you look into, you get a sense of the finest of the most luxury and royal appearance, that each of West Wing portrays to visitors. They are state dining room, which can seat as many as over 140 people.  There are libraries, the red room is parlor since the early 19th century is often used by first ladies to receive guests, and the elegant oval room has long been a reception room.  

Every piece of articles in this towering building shares a history, and symbolizes something larger than life. The visitors are all amazed by the grandeur of the finest furnishings on display. The tour is a treasure hunt for arts collectors, history buff, political avid and peoples of all trade.  It is comfortably said the building is for the American people, except that only the elected president can occupy it.
All visitors don’t want to pass up this rare opportunity by capture their moment in the White House by pose and poses to photos, but I would have spent hours appreciating the beauty of the White House and its symbolism. It was a most memorable tour, and not only that we feel enriched by the depth of this short tour experience. Our students with I love Tibet Shirts are being admired and noticed by those visitors.       

The Ant and the Cicada

                                 The Ant and the Cicada

Translated by Dorjee Damdul, from original story in Chinese.

The scorching sun shines on the vast land. On the limitless farmland, the golden millet, has grown tall. The ant and the Cicada are neighbors. The ant is busy moving the millet [ unhusked rice ]to the house from dusk to down and get ready the stock for the winter. But the Cicada indulges in playing, singing and dance, and does not work a bit. Though the two are neighbors, they hardly to go to each other.

When winter arrived, the ant stays in the house comfortably [with plenty of things to eat].

One morning as the sun rises and begins to shine brightly. The ant takes out the stock provisions and dries them out in the sun. Just then a very hungry famished Cicada flys by.  Without much energy and strength, the Cicada said to the Ant: " My dear good neighbor, can you please lend me some food to eat, I have not eaten one good course of a meal for a while."

" But have you not prepared any food grains for yourself, " asked the ant. " In the summer, there are so much food grains in the field, why you have not stocked some in your house?.
The Cicada replied:  " In summer, i was busy playing, and enjoying, so didn't have time to /move the food grains."

"I see," said the ant, fully understand what Cicada just said.

" When you don't work in the summer, then, of course, you don't have anything to eat in Winter. We only help those who help themselves through hard work; we do not help those who are lousy, and we do not help those who do not like to work.
So you better leave now!"

The Cicada upon hearing that from the ant can not help, but fly away. 

A Journey of Life Time

I have sent my wife and daughters off to meet my Mother and relatives in Chengdu, China. Owing to a variety of reasons and factors, I could not go. But this time, my wife and kids embargoed a  trip to meet my mother and relatives, at a location of their convenience. I wonder what my mother will react when seeing my two daughters, and Choekyi. Even though she could not meet me this time, but my wife and kids will fill my shoes in bringing her jubilation, and joy and happiness.

Grappling WithThe Theft of Car

An exhausting day with my kids has drained me physically after taking them out to library, picnic and play. Blame it or not thus, I forgot to lock the car, which led to theft of my Toyota car.

 This morning Tuesday, 21st  I woke to find my car stolen from our assigned parking lot in front of my townhouse. I didn't realize it until my neighbors, who run to me and told that someone has rummaged her car, and she called the police and asked me if I would check my other cars for any suspicious activities.


When I looked into my Honda CRV. To my utter astonishment, the doors were ajar. My wallet is thrown open on the front passage seat, and other stuff in the car in the driver seat is thrown open with an apparent sign of ransacking in the driver's seat side holder. Only then I realized vaguely, that my other Toyota Corolla car is missing. I rushed back to my house and informed my wife if she is aware of what happened to our car. I was in a state of delirious and panic attack. I couldn't believe it, that your car could be stolen in front your house.


 Now after several hours while sitting in the car, that I recall something. Last evening, when I took the kids to picnic, I left my wallet and our Toyota vehicle key back in the Honda car, because it was felt heavy and my pocket was bulging. So the possibilities are that when the thieves get into my unlocked Honda CRV car (I always thought the car lock automatically) then they found the spare key for the Toyota, and making it easy to steal